Why would Yoga help?
- Ryan Knight
- Jan 18, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 4, 2024
Yoga... What?
I started doing yoga to get more flexible so that I could pass the physical requirements to become a full time firefighter. I couldn't touch my toes sitting down and there was a stupid test that I had to be able to reach past my toes to become a firefighter, something to do with lower back health or whatever. Anyways, I found some online classes to focus on the old hammies and let me touch my toes. It was great, I did it and passed the test after a few weeks of stretching out. Those classes got me to breathe rhythmically and relax into the forward fold by paying attention to the tight muscles and connective tissues around the muscle I was working on.
I added in some Yin Yoga next. This older dude, named Bernie Clark wearing khaki pants and a regular t-shirt getting into a pose and hanging out. Looked pretty easy, so I figured I would try it. I'll start with an hour I said to myself, how hard could 8 poses be in an hour? Hard, is the answer. Yin Yoga is meant to get into the joints and connective tissues, the plastic bits of the body that don't really like rapid change. You get into a position and then relax all the muscles around the target area and then the rest of the body while Bernie talks about anatomy or philosophy or breathing or something. It's uncomfortable and then as you do a counter pose, it's an amazing relief. As I did a few of these practices, I was able to touch my toes with my wrist, WTF was going on?
Yoga got left behind for a while as I focused on building strength and endurance for the job. Gym workouts and obstacle races and having kids and life in general took up the space that yoga used to be, until the aches and pains caught up with me. In my second year of full time firefighting and part time Paramedic work, my back hurt all the time, I couldn't feel my middle toe on my left foot, my neck was sore and the shoulder that I hurt in training was causing all sorts of issues. This super intense guy who's like 6'4", bald and has a couple different personalities when he plays goalie said to me, "HEYMANHAVEyouevertRIEDhotyoga? It is awe sum."
So I checked it out on the way home the next day. There was a Moksha Yoga studio on the way home and I dropped into the 10am class after a work out at the gym. Amanda was the instructor and I sweated more than I have ever sweated in a workout since intro to aerobics at the YMCA day camp when I was 11, and I felt great. And I was hooked. And I got a membership and went as often as I could after shift for a few years. It became a part of my coping strategy as I went through my PTSD therapy and recovery the first time and was vital in my routine to decompress after work and switch gears from rescue hero guy to Dad and husband.
I needed to figure out why it worked as I went through the psychological therapies I was also doing. It turns out that when you work as a first responder, you can't become emotionally involved in the scenes you attend and that starts to overflow into life sometimes and you shut off emotions as you do the normal parts of life. Then it becomes a habit and then you stop feeling stuff and you didn't even notice it was happening. The thing about yoga is that it makes you stay aware of your body and your breath. Since we feel emotions in the body, we can stay in touch with them through a mindful movement practice like yoga. Once I found this tidbit out, I wanted to spread the benefits of yoga for first responders, but not in the pop culture style of yoga with the hippie based, women in tights, pseudo-spiritual and crazy expensive image. I wanted to make it something that run down tired, cynical first responders could relate to, so I enrolled in yoga teacher training on line. I spent a year practicing at home and at the studio as it changed from Moksha to Modo, I studied Sanskrit and anatomy and memorized poses and wrote papers and learned there are 7 more limbs of yoga and prepared a practice teaching lesson. I got through it all, received my 200 hour certification with a couple of extra 25 hour trainings on top of it and then the world lost it's mind over a fresh new type of respiratory disease and shut down every way of coping with the job I had except for a home practice. It was a difficult fall from recovering from PTSD, creating a community, gym workout plan, hot yoga practice to nothing but the job and all the stress that came with societal lockdowns and mandates. Yoga got lost again.
As the pressure released after society imploded, along with the rest of the world, I was a mess, but this time, I knew the signs. It took my therapist pointing it out to me, I didn't know why letting go of so much was so easy and she said it was because I had already done it. The community came back differently this time and I was already feeling like leading. I went from participating in a retreat to helping to lead it. I was invited to a yoga retreat and went in feeling awkward and left feeling empowered. The people who ran the retreat, Happy Jack Yoga, invited me into their mentorship program and the education community and helped me to rebuild my practice to a point where it not only supports me, but helps me to grow in ways I could never have expected when I started my journey to touch my toes so long ago.
Why would Yoga help? Because that is what it does, it is a tool that has been available for thousands of years and it is still here because it works. However you come to it, there it is.
If you would like to see if something in yoga works for you, I will be offering some in person classes soon in Owen Sound, I'll post them on the website when arrangements are complete.
In the meantime, if you want to try one of the awe sum hot yoga classes and live near Barrie, Amanda is teaching there:
Or if you are looking for more check out some of the offerings from Happy Jack:
The Beginner's Guide to Yoga
All the way to a teacher training Yo!
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